


All in Your Head

by phoenixyfriend



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies), Young Avengers
Genre: 616!Kate and MCU!Loki are unlikely friends, F/M, Gen, Humor, Intergenerational friendship, Snark, and it's all 616!Loki's fault, more characters and relationships to be added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-03-16 03:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3472571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixyfriend/pseuds/phoenixyfriend
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To all appearances, Kate Bishop is a figment of Loki's imagination, just another symptom of his broken psyche showing itself to the world. He's not entirely sure that's <i>wrong</i> (though Kate certainly seems to think she's just as real as any of them, even if they can't see or hear her), but her company is more than preferable to the boring days before.</p><p>Besides, even a mortal can play a decent game of chess with a little practice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Just Came to Say Hello

Loki didn’t have much to do in his cell. It was positively _cushy_ , if sparse, especially compared to what it could have been. However, as mentioned before, there wasn’t really all that much to _do_. The boredom was as much a punishment as the isolation and the limitation of his movements. He even had several books, but he had inevitably run out of things to read and do weeks ago. As much as Frigga would have liked to help, it really was meant to be a _punishment_.

He learned to entertain himself otherwise. He watched the guards come and go, eavesdropped to hear whose wife was pregnant and who lost a challenge of strength to a novice. He made up stories about the other inmates, concocting adventures in his head that likely far outstripped whatever they truly did to land themselves here. He quietly sat, and stared, and sent at least three guards running for Odin on multiple occasions, insisting that Loki was planning something, the look couldn’t _possibly_ mean anything else, my Lord, you _must_ believe me.

Odin came in person to reprimand him the third time it happened. Really, it was almost like the old days.

What it came down to eventually, though, was that he simply ran out of things to do, and spent several weeks with nothing to occupy his time beyond marinating in his own hatred. It was really quite depressing and after the first few days, even he couldn’t really enjoy it.

Of course, then came the girl.

o.o.o.o.o

Kate didn’t know where she was. Or when, really; that was always a possibility too, especially with the team being the way it was. The last thing she remembered was Loki’s experiment exploding in ~~his~~ zir face (she had to remember pronouns, right). Kate had been in the room, because Billy had left for a bathroom break and someone needed to make sure Loki didn’t summon a demon or something ridiculous like that. Unfortunately, that was apparently what had lead to Kate’s current situation, which she didn’t completely have a handle on yet.

The ceiling was pure white, faintly glowing, and completely unfamiliar. She wasn’t in her apartment or any room on the Marvel, and the glow meant she probably wasn’t in the hospital either. Unless it was a hospital in Asgard, which she doubted, because she was pretty sure she’d woken up on the floor.

Kate could hear someone breathing a few yards away, but they didn’t seem to be keen on doing anything yet, so she didn’t either; if she could get away with pretending to be mostly-insensate for a while longer, even if she was clearly awake, it could only do her good. She kept her eyes focused on the ceiling and catalogued the injuries she could feel without getting up and looking. She was reasonably sure that there were burns on her left arm, and maybe some charred hair, going by the smell, but that seemed to be the worst of it. No broken bones that she could feel, nothing bleeding, and barely even a headache. There was a strange ache in her ankle, and she had the feeling that she’d find she’d rolled it when she put weight on it, but that barely counted as an injury.

She was fairly certain she should’ve had something worse than just that, given the strength of the explosion, but she supposed someone might’ve healed the worst of it already.

Or there was a ‘situation’ caused by the magical nature of the explosion, in which case she may have been transported somewhere by the magic before the fire itself reached her.

o.o.o.o.o

Loki didn’t confront the girl immediately. She had landed on her back and hadn’t moved since, other than to open her eyes and stare at the ceiling. She looked young and, while well-muscled, was very visibly human. She was unlikely to be a threat, by his estimates, especially since she hadn’t attempted to attack him yet, even in his much-weakened state. She was also unlikely to be an assassin, though if she were one, Loki was tempted to say that he wouldn’t try very hard to stop her, depending on what kind of mood she’d caught him in; today, at least, he was well enough in temperament to prefer life.

After a full minute of watching her stare at the ceiling, unmoving save for a series of small twitches, he finally chose to speak.

“You know, if you’re here kill me, I’ve been informed that there is a line.” Perhaps the information had come from the Man of Iron, but it was more than believable. It was a mortal phrase, that, but it was one he’d grown to find amusing. “So I’m afraid you’ll—”

He cut himself off as the girl abruptly turned and flipped onto her feet, her slightly gangly limbs not entirely graceful but plenty efficient. She landed with her back to the wall, hands ready in case she needed to defend herself, and her eyes flickered over the room, presumably trying to take in as many details as possible.

“You’re not going to find anything to attack me with if you haven’t brought it yourself.” He doubted that, given the skin-tight nature of her clothing and lack of visible bulges; unless she had a pocket dimension somewhere on her person, she wasn’t carrying anything large enough to give him pause. “And I’d rather not bring down the All-Father’s judgment upon myself for killing a little mortal girl, if it’s possible to avoid such a situation.”

The girl’s eyes narrowed, a calculating look stealing across her face. “You’re Loki.”

“Sharp, aren’t you?” He was only slightly mocking. Really, he was.

“But not the one I know.” She stood up a little straighter, and her head started turning around the prison again, cataloguing all the information she saw. “Which means I’m either in a different dimension or a different time period. Judging by your appearance… I’ll go with the dimension theory.”

Loki raised an eyebrow. If the sudden and unexplained appearance hadn’t been enough to gain his interest, these words would have done the trick. “You believe in multidimensional theory, then? I wasn’t aware that it was common amongst mortals.”

“Kinda hard to doubt it when you’ve lived through it.” The girl turned her attention back to him and crossed her arms under her chest. “So, you got the kind of magic that can send me back? I don’t want to stay here any longer than necessary, and people are bound to ask questions if they find me here, so I’m pretty sure that would be the least troublesome solution for both of us. Unless you have another suggestion?”

Loki was very tempted to ask her just what gave her the right to question him in such a manner, just why she acted as though she could call herself his equal, but held back. It was much more amusing to see her face fall as he told her just what the biggest obstacle to her pretty little plan was.

“I’m afraid that the majority of my magic has been sealed since my imprisonment. I have enough power left for individualized shapeshifting and some minor feats of illusion and shielding, but all else is beyond my powers.” He tilted his head to the side and kept his expression impassive. All for dramatic effect, of course.

“Well.” The girl thought this over for a second. “Shit.”

The corner of Loki’s lip almost twitched at that. “Indeed.”

“And I’m guessing anyone else will attempt to arrest me first and ask questions later, and I’ve been told that Asgardians aren’t really light on that sort of thing.” She paused, looked at Loki for a fraction of a second, and shrugged. “Unless you’re royalty, I guess, but nobility’s always been able to get away with stuff. Blood keeps the law at bay almost as well as money does, I think.”

“You speak from experience.”

“I’ve lived a long time as ‘Daddy’s little rich girl.’ I know how willing the law is to bend.” The girl looked him over, either completely unimpressed or just very good at putting up an act to the effect. She returned to the original subject. “So I’m basically stuck here until the next guard comes by and notices me, in which case I’ll probably be dragged out, possibly be arrested, and only then given the option of maybe talking to someone who could possibly send me home.”

“Perhaps.” Loki would have agreed, normally, but something in the girl’s words had hit a little light in his head, and he looked around the prison, checking on both the other inmates and the distant guards.

“Granted,” the girl didn’t seem to notice, or pretended she didn’t, “Billy or America or my dimension’s Loki could probably find me and get me home, but that would probably take a while.”

“I do not know who the first two are, and while I’m not entirely certain of my counterpart’s abilities in the field of magic, I do know that tracking someone across dimensions tends to be rather difficult when the travel is unintentional. Now, if you would please be quiet for a moment.” Loki stood up partway through his little speech and began pacing around the room, one hand trailing along the walls and leaving a softly glowing trail behind it. The girl quieted behind him, sliding backwards into a position ready for combat, reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there and aborting the motion halfway through. Loki put a hand on her shoulder for a moment as he passed by ( _solid_ ), and felt her tense beneath his touch.

“What’s wrong?”

“You are, I believe, and not entirely in the expected manner.” Loki turned away from the wall and faced the girl. “If you would aid me in a quick experiment?”

“Depends. Are there needles involved?” The girl’s eyes were checking ‘round again, and she seemed to realize something. “Ah, Loki? I may have made an assumption earlier that I now realize may have been wrong. Are any of these cells soundproof?”

“Scream,” Loki ordered her, “as loud as you can.”

She only gave him a glance, but she clearly saw the point of the command. “Next time, say ‘please.’”

The girl took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and let loose a blood-curdling screech that a banshee would have been proud of. It took several seconds for her to wind down, and while Loki didn’t let it show on the outside, his ears were ringing.

Not a single person so much as glanced in the girl’s direction.

She took several deep breaths, and an understanding horror began dawning on her face simultaneously. “I’m invisible and inaudible, then?”

“To all but me, it seems. We’ll have to wait for more people to come by to test it, but that does appear to be the case.” A thought crossed his mind, distasteful but needing acknowledgment. “It is possible that you are merely a figment of my imagination. I’ve been told I’m mad rather often; I suppose it’s only fitting for the insult to finally ring true.”

“Why would someone like you imagine someone like me?” the girl snorted, sitting down on the only chair in room. “And besides, for all I know, I’m actually in a coma and you’re nothing but a dream. Or maybe you’re using those illusion powers you claim you’ve still got to make me _think_ you’re the only one that can really see me. Seriously, conspiracy theories are not the way to go, buddy.”

Loki pursed his lips, but conceded the point with a nod. There was no point in trying to start an argument with the girl, not when she was right there and refreshingly pleasant compared to the usual fare, Frigga excluded. He took a seat upon the bed, laced his hands together and leaned forward to let them hang between his knees as his elbows rested upon his spread legs.

“You still haven’t told me your name, little traveler.” There were many names he could use, nicknames and titles and insults, but if he was indeed going to have to deal with this girl any longer than necessary, then moderately civil interactions would be preferable to anything else. “You know mine, after all; I’ve been left at something of a disadvantage.”

“And you’re not happy about that at all, are you?” The girl rolled her eyes, and leaned back in her chair, her hands laced behind her head. “Katherine Bishop, call me Kate, don’t call me Katie.”

Loki blinked once, just long enough to convey his disdain for mortal names. “I would prefer to address you as Katherine.”

“Call me Kate.” She repeated, and crossed her arms with such a look of defiance on her face that he almost relented and indulged her out of pure amusement.

“No, Katherine, I don’t believe I shall.”

Her scowl was more entertaining than anything he had seen since he first landed himself in this gilded cage. He thought that, just maybe, he might enjoy her presence, however long it lasted.


	2. Counting Bodies Like Sheep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Loki theorizes long enough to talk about things that make Kate less-than-pleased.

Kate, Loki found, wasn’t entirely used to being in situations where she couldn’t take some sort of action to get out. She didn’t immediately turn to hitting things in order to get out of said situations like most Aesir, which Loki was thankful for, but she did pace and mutter and question him. He plays along until the girl exhausts the possible avenues of questioning, and simply sits down on the floor with her legs crossed in front of her.

“This is bullshit.” She finally said, leaning back against Loki’s bed. He made a face that she coudn’t see, but didn’t comment. There weren’t exactly a lot of clear surfaces in the room to lean against, not when three of the four walls were actually force fields. _Painful_ force fields.

“I assume that is a mortal idiom.” Loki said, “For I see no fecal matter here.”

Kate turned her head back to look at him with a raised brow, but didn’t say anything. She looked away again, rolling her eyes.

“I can’t go home.” She said. “I’ve got nothing. No powers, no magic, no trans-dimensional technical doohickey to get me home. And you can’t do a thing to help because you’re under lock and key and so is your magic.”

Loki’s face twisted into an expression of irritation and disdain. “Unfortunately.”

“Which means we’re stuck with each other for the foreseeable future.” Kate bounced her head against the bed, once, twice, and then a third time with a noise of frustration. “That’s not… I don’t know how long it’s going to take for me to get back home, and if no one except you can see or hear me, how am I supposed to survive? I’m assuming you’re only getting enough food for one person, even if the portions are Asgardian-sized, and I don’t see a bathroom in here.”

Loki took a second to gather his thoughts, and then slowly explained what he believed to be the problem, or at least one of the many problems that faced them.

“That shan’t be an issue.” He said, choosing his words carefully. “I do not believe that your state here is quite as… _corporeal_ as it seems.”

Loki could see Kate frowning even with the odd angle. “Yeah? How do you figure that?”

“You mentioned an explosion, yet you are mostly unharmed. You are entirely inaudible and invisible to the others in the area, but I can see and hear you. You can interact with the inanimate objects around you, but your body has yet to force you to take care of day-to-day health concerns, despite being here for a number of hours.” Loki put the last part as delicately as he could; talk of defecation and such was uncultured at best. “You aren’t necessarily a mortal being at the moment. Far likelier is that you are a disembodied soul or something along those lines that has, for whatever reason, been tied to this place or my person.”

Kate took a deep breath. “Okay. So. I’m… kind of a ghost?”

“If your usual body has been destroyed, then yes. If it hasn’t, then no; you are simply separated until further notice.” Loki thought this was good news; it meant that her stay would be less unpleasant for both of them, and if her body was still alive, it may have even made finding her easier for whoever deigned to search for her.

“Well, that’s… all kinds of awful.” Kate frowned. “Am I going to have any trouble getting reattached to my body or whatever?”

“Bonding a soul to a still-living body should not be too difficult.” Loki mused. “Especially if the soul and body in question were meant to be jointed. I’ve done it before, though not often. It takes some time to prepare the various spells, but it is not necessarily _difficult_.”

“And finding me will be…?” Kate trailed off, waiting for an answer.

“More variable.” Loki thought it over. “A particularly skilled tracker could find you in several hours, but those are… rare. Very rare. I have only met someone capable of doing it by way of skill once, and that was a very long time ago. A particularly powerful god, such as Odin or Hela, could do it through sheer force in a similar time frame. Depending on the skill level of my counterpart and those aiding him, and the distance of your dimension from the one we are currently in, it could take anywhere from a several days to several months. Assuming my counterpart is of a similar skill level to myself and that your dimension is a middling distance from this one, I would wager a week or two as the likeliest timeframe.”

Kate made a face, but sighed and turned to face him, legs crossed. “Could be worse. Could you estimate how far we are if I gave you the number of the dimension I’m from?”

“You know the number?” Loki asked, slightly impressed despite himself. The numbering system frequently seemed arbitrary at best, and it was rare that anyone who didn’t regularly travel between dimensions under their own power or handle the ‘border crossing’ of those travelers knew any of the numbers, their own included.

“We did a lot of interdimensional travelling a couple months back when we were hunting down a friend that got kidnapped by some Eldritch abomination wearing another friend’s old costume. It was…” Kate shook her head a little. “It was a weird situation, but we ended up memorizing a handful of the numbers we needed to know along the way. Places we needed to avoid, places that were more or less safe, that sort of stuff.”

“I see.” He did, actually. “And your dimension’s number?”

“Earth-616.” Kate said. “Also known as Earth-Earth, for some reason. That might have just been my Loki and America’s in-joke, though. We spent a lot of time on Earth-212, and had some contacts on 1610.”

“That… is very far from here. It would extend the estimated search time at least twice over.” Loki pursed his lips. “This is 199999.”

Kate blinked. “That’s a lot of… wait, how many nines?”

“Five. Why?” Loki raised an eyebrow as Kate’s eyes widened.

“Earth One-Quintuple-Nine!” Kate seemed more than a little excited, to Loki’s eyes. “I was there! We all were, when we were hunting the Patri-not! It was, like, two months after someone had destroyed Midtown with some kind of alien army, so there wasn’t much to see, but this dimension is like… really young, in some ways. I only remember the number because it was a relatively safe dimension and the number was easy to memorize, but yeah, I’ve been here before. I mean, not _here_ here, but this dimension.”

Loki focused on the part that was relevant to him. “Midtown?”

“Part of Manhattan. You know, New York City? That area near Stark Tower, if you’ve been there.” Kate waved a hand dismissively. “Doesn’t matter. Anyway—”

“It does, actually.” Loki held up a hand to forestall any questions. “How long ago did you visit?”

“Four, maybe five months?” Kate said, giving him a look that said ‘I don’t know where you’re going with this, but you know more about what’s going on and how to fix it, so I’ll play along for now.’

“I see.” Loki tallied the numbers up in his head, trying to keep his brain focused on Midgardian time. “Katherine, that event occurred nearly a year and a half ago.”

“What?” Kate blinked at him. “That’s… no, that’s impossible.”

“It is not.” Loki said. “Your dimension may have a skewed timeline. They’re uncommon, but they do exist. This dimension does not. The mechanics of the system are strange and often lack any strict rules, but they do happen. This may also extend the time your acquaintances spend searching for you need to find you, from your perspective, though not as much as you’d think.”

“But that’s… how do you even know what the disaster in Midtown was?” Kate demanded. “You don’t exactly seem the type to,” she affected a mocking voice, “ _concern yourself with mortal matters._ There could have been another disaster since whichever one you know of.”

“I know when the disaster occurred because I was the one that caused it.” Loki said as matter-of-factly as he could, which was, in a word, ‘very.’

Kate blinked once. Twice. She groaned and flopped backwards onto the floor. “Of _freaking_ course.”

“You do not seem surprised.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“I assume that is another Midgardian saying.”

Kate levered herself back up onto her elbows and glared at Loki. “Yes, Loki. Yes, it is.”

“Hm.” Loki pursed his lips. “Why, exactly, are you unsurprised?”

“Because you’re _Loki_. I’ve met a lot of evil versions of you, and a lot of versions that were arguably victims but did morally reprehensible things, and a lot of versions that thought they were the good guys but fucked up and destroyed things instead.” Kate sat up again fully. “What I’m saying is that if there is a Loki in any given dimension, there’s a good chance that the Loki in question is considered a supervillain. Even fun-sized ones, and even ones that think they’re doing what’s best for everyone.”

Loki didn’t question the meaning of “fun-sized.” He did, however mull over the fact that he seems… stuck. “So I am destined to be the villain to Thor’s hero in every dimension, then. How fitting.”

“If you think destiny has anything to do with it, you’re even dumber than you seem, and I said _considered_ , not was. I friends with a Loki that’s trying to fix that, if only for zirself.” Kate scoffed. “Though one of the keys to not being considered a supervillain is not acting like one, you know.”

“I did not—!” Loki began hotly.

“You attacked Manhattan!” Kate shouted back before he could continue. “That’s, like, number three on the list of supervillain behaviors! Attacking Manhattan is, like, the first and most easily identifiable supervillain trait on the planet! You attack Manhattan, you’re a villain! That’s how this shit works!”

Loki was… taken aback, at the very least, by her vitriol and apparent belief in her own superior knowledge on the subject. “A paltry island is worth that much to you?”

“And talking like that is, like, number four.” Kate rolled her eyes. “Yes, Manhattan is important. Eight million people live in New York City, and it’s the financial center of the world, as well as a major superhero hub, home to a lot of very important people, and a cultural icon. It’s not the capitol, but it’s one of the most important cities in one of the most powerful countries in the world. Raining down death and destruction on any city is villain material anyway, but doing it to Manhattan is bumping it up to supervillain, alright?”

Loki made a face, and his next word was scathing. “Midgardians.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Kate made a disgusted noise and turned her back on him. “No wonder you’re stuck down here. You’re probably the first major supervillain the planet’s had.”

That… stung, a little. It didn’t hurt the way that Thor and Odin and Frigga’s disgust did, but Kate had already admitted to being friends with another Loki with a less-than-stellar past, and clearly had experience with other Lokis beyond the two of them, and she had… found him wanting. She was open to speaking with him, and then she judged him by a measure that apparently had nothing to do with any of his personal beliefs regarding his supposed family’s judgement.

Being Jotunn and adopted and superior or inferior had nothing to do with _her_ judgement, apparently. She likely knew what he was and could be, all things considered. Yet she only judged by what he had done to a single city.

And she found him wanting.

“What were the first two?” He asked, to distract himself from the uncomfortable introspection.

“What?” Kate turned around, curious, but still looking irritable.

“You said that attacking that Midgardian city was the third object on a list of traits applicable to these ‘supervillains.’” He didn’t much like the word, but it was accurate enough. “What were the first two?”

“I dunno?” Kate shrugged. “Um… trying to take over the world and attempted genocide, probably, just going by famous supervillains back home.”

Loki was silent.

“You didn’t.” Kate sounded as though she didn’t believe her own words, dead as her tone is.

“Midgard is populated by ants, and Jotunnheim by monsters. I see nothing wrong with my actions”

“No, no, no, you don’t get to decide that.” Kate grabbed at her head. “Ugh, you’re insufferable! Do you understand the concept of respecting life forms that differ from yourself at all?”

“Obviously.” Loki sniffed. “I would not have done the same to the Vanir or the dwarves, for instance.”

The look Kate gives him could strip paint from a wall. “Ah, so you’re _selectively_ racist. Or speciesist. Or at least, only consciously so. Wonderful.”

“I am… what?” The words held meaning, Loki could tell that much, but that meaning did not translate to any word that existed in Asgard’s vocabulary.

“You’re a bigoted fool.” Kate said bluntly. “I mean, growing up in almost any society opens people to racism and it’s hard to unlearn, but most people don’t take it as far as _genocide and planetary conquest_. And I get internalized racism too, but again: taking it so far as genocide can _not_ be blamed solely on your upbringing. You have to take the blame for that, and in case you haven’t realized yet, _yes_ , genocide is a bad thing, no matter who or what the race or species is.”

“Internalized racism?” Loki could follow most of her words, but some were popping up and _just_ _not translating_.

“You know… being raised in a society to hate one’s own race or ethnicity.” Kate looked awkward. “I mean, I’ve never experienced it, but I know a _lot_ of mutants and racial minorities, and I research stuff, so I know what it is. And your hatred of Jotunn, from what I can tell, is a textbook case of internalized racism.”

Loki crossed his arms. “Explain.”

“Explain what?”

“You keep speaking in terms I don’t understand, because Asgard has no equivalent to them. We have little else to do while we wait for your acquaintances to find you.” Loki tilted his head. “So explain these terms and concepts as you Midgardians understand them, and convince me why my actions were wrong.”

“No. No, no, no.” Kate shook her head. “I’m not the kind of person that talks about this stuff. I’m a rich white girl. I can talk about, like, misogyny and stuff, but I’m not… I haven’t lived any of _this_.”

“Then who else?” Loki gestured about his cell almost imperiously.

Kate looked around. Criminals and guards, all raised in similar circumstances to Loki’s, and none willing to speak with him even if they _had_ understood the concepts.

She pursed her lips. “Fine.” Under her breath, she whispers. “Understanding Racism 101 and Introduction to Intersectional Feminism for supervillains, here we come.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter absolutely did not go where I was expecting it to. 
> 
> I've decided to name chapters after songs. This one is rather relevant to much of Loki's mental state, and how his conscious mind and subconscious interact.


	3. Monster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Internalized racism isn't nearly as fun to talk about as chess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: discussion of abuse, very poor familial situations, and genocide.

Kate thunked her head against the wall. “I hate you.”

“I asked a simple question.” Loki seemed almost amused.

“No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You asked a question I’ve answered _five times_ in a new way so you could try to find a flaw in my logic because you don’t want to admit that what I’m saying makes sense.” Kate turned to glare at Loki. “The Jotnar being _different_ from you is not adequate grounds for considering them beneath you.”

“They are monsters.”

“You can say the same thing for literally _any sentient creature in the multiverse_.” Kate seethed. “The word is a _subjective concept_. Besides, they haven’t even done anything to Asgard for centuries. By your own admission, their entire society is just sort of… limping along without the Casket, and minding their own business.”

“That doesn’t change history.”

“And history doesn’t change the fact that they are, objectively, a sentient race capable of things like culture and structured hierarchies and language and all sorts of shit that indicates a sentient race that needs respect!” Kate let her head fall back against the wall. “You can’t say that they’re all naturally dumb beasts, because you’re living proof that that’s not true. You can’t say that they’re all war-mongering, because they kept to the treaties for centuries. You can’t say that they’re naturally evil, because, well, again, _you_.”

“You think I don’t have the capacity to be evil?”

“I think you’re trying to trap me into _saying_ that you _are_ evil. Everyone has the _capacity_ for evil; it’s a matter of choice whether they go down that path or not.” Kate sent him an unimpressed look. “And whether or not you’re evil, the first millennium or so of your life showed that you weren’t naturally so. Mischievous, yes, but not _evil_. There’s a pretty big difference between the two.”

“And how would you know of my intentions and thoughts in these past thousand years?” Loki’s expression was as measured as Kate’s. “You may know of my counterparts, yes, but you have no way of knowing if they lied, nor how their actions reflect upon me, nor of what their intentions were.”

“Yeah, but I trust the Loki I know.” Kate pointed out. “You’re right in that I have no way of knowing, but I know what I’ve seen, and what I’ve seen is a Loki that is slowly working zir way out of a really bad mental state caused by centuries of emotional abuse and becoming a hero, or at least an anti-hero, in zir own right. Almost every Loki I’ve seen that went evil did so because of outside forces. It was nurture, not nature.”

Loki tilted his head, and Kate could tell that she’d accidentally managed to get him to drop the issue in favor of a shiny new toy. “You say those last words like they mean something more. That line regarding nature and nurture.”

“It’s a concept in genetics…” Kate bit her lip. “David could explain it a lot better; he can explain _everything_ better, but… it’s the idea that everything that makes up a person’s personality and being is caused by either nature or nurture. Nature is genealogy, you know, DNA and stuff. Bloodlines. And nurture is the environment a person is raised in; their status, the beliefs of the people around them, and so on. A constant debate in scientific circles is just how much of a person’s actions and personality are dictated by their genes and just how much is dictated by the environment they were raised in.”

“It seems like a concept that does not require much thought to create.” Loki said, looking at Kate down the length of his nose.

“Yeah, so explain to me why you keep trying to blame everything on the nature of Frost Giants rather than the nurture of their culture?” Kate crossed her arms. “A person can go against their nature, or go against their nurture, but you need to accept that some things _are_ a result of one or the other, whether it suits your beliefs or not. I have never met a non-Loki Jotun. The closest I got was some second-hand stories about a resurrected Laufey that was under the Mother parasite’s control, and _everyone_ under her control was trying to kill us. But the Lokis I’ve met are spread out all over the moral compass, and I’d say that’s a decent indicator that, even if morality _is_ somehow genetically dictated in Jotunn, then it’s not to such a degree that it can’t be defied.”

Loki didn’t seem impressed.

“You’re an asshole.” Kate informed him, as though she were doing him some great service by telling him that.

“Indeed.” Loki’s lip curled into a sneer, “I suppose you are no longer in the mood to continue our… discussions.”

“ _No_ , what gave you that idea?” Kate’s look was scathing.

“Do you have a suggestion for anything else to do, or shall we simply spend the rest of the evening ignoring each other?”

Kate thought about it. She had an idea. It wasn’t a _terrible_ idea. It wasn’t a particularly good one either, but it wasn’t _terrible_.

“Ever played chess?”

o.o.o.o.o

“You are abominable at this.”

Kate stuck her tongue out at Loki. “How do you know I’m not just going easy on you so that I can pump your ego up and avoid dying?”

“If that were your goal, then you would at least be trying to give me a challenge, not playing like a child.”

“You’ve never even played the game before today!”

“Which should be just another sign of how terribly inept you are, to be routinely beaten by a beginner.”

“Hmph.” Kate stuck her tongue out at him again. “If you want a better playing partner, then keep playing with me. I’m not going to get any better without practice.”

“I suppose.” Loki said, and waved a hand over the illusionary board they were using to play, resetting the pieces. He waited as Kate played first. “You said this game was used to train strategic thought?”

“I think that’s what I heard, yeah.” Kate said. “Is there a local variant?”

“Something like it, I suppose. I’ve yet to decide whether this game measures up.” Loki kept his hands resting on his knees, sitting crisscross on the floor, same as Kate. “It doesn’t seem a poor game so far, though my opponent is rather lacking.”

“Screw you.” Kate said cheerfully. “I’m going to get good enough at this game to kick your ass and I will _love it_.”

“If you say so.” Loki’s tone was magnanimous, but his expression betrayed how condescendingly he meant it.

“I miss the times when the Loki I was stuck with was four and a half feet tall. So much easier to deal with.” She moved another piece. “Hey, quick question: do I need to sleep? Since I don’t have a body and all.”

“You will need to sleep for cognitive reasons, if not physiological ones. It won’t be as much as is usual for your species, but your mind needs time to process what has happened to you during the day and provide mental rest in general.” Loki had more than enough experience with out-of-body events.

“So… just wait ‘til I’m tired?” Kate asked, watching as Loki made his next move. “Or is it going to feel like something else?”

“It will feel much like physical fatigue, yes.” Loki took out one of Kate’s pawns. “Though the symptoms of sleep deprivation will be rather different.”

“Joy. At least I won’t be too confused.” Kate eyed the board and leaned to one side, trying to get another perspective. “Dammit, how are you so good at this already?”

“I’ve been playing at war for centuries.” Loki told her. “Applying lessons learned in battle to a simple game is not exactly difficult.”

“Rhetorical question, buddy.” Kate took one of Loki’s pawns, and then cursed as he immediately captured one of her bishops. “Dammit!”

“Do you really plan to do nothing but play this game until your companions find you?” Loki asked. It would get tiresome rather quickly if that were the case.

“Well,” Kate eyed the board again. “There’s also me teaching you about feminism, and I wouldn’t be averse to you teaching me about this dimension’s history. I never got a lot of information on the history of the nine realms back home. And maybe sparring; I’m always ready to learn a new way to fight.”

History of the Nine Realms. Yes, he could do that. “Are you sure you would not rather learn magic? I am one of the most powerful and learned sorcerers in the Nine Realms, after all.”

“I don’t do magic. I don’t do powers.” Kate snorted. “Don’t have the right frame of mind for the first, and never got put into a situation that lead me to the second. I shoot, I strategize, I lead, I do diplomacy, and I fight hand to hand. I have my specialties, and superpowers don’t factor into them.”

“I see.” He didn’t really, but at least she hadn’t dismissed it for being a weak art or some other nonsense. “Do you do anything besides fight and engage in your studies?”

“I play the cello.” Kate thought it over. “Watch Dog Cops, have little competitions with Clint, go clubbing, do yoga, play with Lucky, try to avoid the goons my dad’s friends keep sending after me.”

“Goons?” The word had a meaning just barely out of reach.

“Uh…” Kate appeared to be wracking her brains for a proper answer. “Mercenaries or hired thugs. Basically, guys that are trained to fight, but not _too_ well, and are being paid by my dad to do his dirty work for him. Or, well, being paid by my dad’s friends to do their dirty work. My dad tries to keep his hands clean of my blood by attacking Clint instead, like that makes up for the fact that he voted yes to me being put on a hit list by, like, a dozen criminal organizations.”

Loki pursed his lips. “And he sends these men after you… why?”

“Because he’s a dick?” Kate snorted. “Short answer, it’s because he’s doing illegal shit and working with supervillains, and I’m a superhero that’s supposed to stop him, and after I found out and cut ties… it’s a complicated situation, but it mostly boils down to my dad being a douchebag without enough of a spine to argue against his ‘business partners’ when they decide to have me killed.”

Loki blinked. “I see.”

“Tch.” Kate crossed her arms and glared down at the board, but Loki doubted she was actually seeing anything. “I feel like I shouldn’t have been surprised, or like I shouldn’t have cut ties, or like I should have stayed loyal to my family or whatever, but like… stopping people like him is my _job_. It’s my calling. It’s… being a superhero is my life, and that means taking care of supervillains. And that’s what he is, now. And he’s trying to get me killed.”

“And your mother?”

“Dead. Couple a’ years now. I have a stepmom, but she’s only, like, three years older than me, and it’s creepy as hell. I’m still on decent terms with my sister, but I think that’s only because she doesn’t realize how serious the split between me and my dad is.”

“And yet you judge me for my poor relations with my supposed family.”

“No, I judge you for being a genocidal douchebag.” Kate’s glare was annoyed, but she didn’t look mercurial and melancholy anymore, which had honestly been the point of that comment. “Stop trying to make it look like I’m judging you for things like that. You have the right to cut ties with your family. You don’t have the right to wipe out entire species or take over planets. We’ve been over this.”

“No one judged Odin for it.”

“Because he’s too powerful for them to risk angering him. He doesn’t have that right either, he just did it anyway and everyone was too scared to argue.”

“If you say so.”

Kate rolled her eyes. Again. “Just move your damn piece, Loki.”

“Oh, did I forget to say it? Checkmate.”

Kate eyed the board for a few seconds, and then cursed a blue streak. “Fine. Again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a weak ending (or just a weak chapter in general), but whatever.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is likely going to be updated sporadically, but that may change.
> 
> Kate and Loki will remain platonic for the duration of this story (and for everything afterwards). I have no plans for them as a ship, and I doubt I ever will.


End file.
